Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Thing #3 I need to share about me

Back in the day, Kermit was the bomb. I still use it on occasion, but, well, you know. 15 years ago offices were just not connected to the internet. Computers weren't on every desktop much less lap top. So, my first corporate internet connection was a slight back door. We had a line to the US EPA mainframe so the air and water pollution data could be shared. My buddy Shermer (who shall remain surnameless) clued me in that the EPA had internet connectivity, and they had a Kermit program. So I FTP'd data to my mainframe account, and Kermit'd it back to a PC or a UNIX system.

Sperry/Unisys sold the State our first UNIX box, running AT&T 5R2, and gave out PC programs to connect over TCP/IP to login and transfer files. Turns out they swiped the Kermit protocol without attribution as I recall. Somehow I ended up getting new versions of Kermit for UNIX, and then Kermit for Windows 3.1, and then for Windows 95, because it did terminal emulation, moved files, and it was generally free. Then I started working on beta versions, emailing the Kermit maintainers with questions and comments.

I sent binary versions of the compiled C Kermit for every machine we had, from the 68020 Unisys machines to a RISC Prime computer, and even some NetBSD binaries. I submitted typo reports after reading the C Kermit book, so Frank da Cruz sent me an autographed copy of Using C-Kermit Communication software Second Edition.